Undaunted by the Night: Surviving the 10th Battalion Massacre

By Edward E. E. Frietman

This is the first installment in a three-part series (see part 2 and part 3) featuring Indo luminary Edward E. E. Frietman, who is a respected figure in the Indo community, known in both the Netherlands and the United States for his accomplishments in academia, science, and public service. He has previously shared his life story and his and Inca’s joyous 60th wedding anniversary celebration with The Indo Project.

As we mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific this August 2025, we highlight Edward’s story as a powerful reminder that, for the Indo community and those with roots in the Dutch East Indies, the end of the war did not bring immediate peace. Instead, it ushered in the violent and chaotic Bersiap period, a time of deep uncertainty and danger for many.

In this reflection, Edward shares his eyewitness account of both World War II and its turbulent aftermath, offering a rare and deeply personal perspective on a pivotal chapter in Indo history. His story helps preserve the lived experiences of a generation that endured—and survived—one of the most complex periods in our shared past.

A Family Uprooted by War

Although I was born on July 27, 1940, at 7:33 a.m. in the Carolus Hospital in Batavia, my parents and I lived in Yogyakarta in 1941. My father was mobilized on December 11, 1941, but with the rapid invasion of the Japanese army on Java, the capitulation came swiftly on Sunday, March 8, 1942. My mother and I were left alone in Djokjakarta. For our safety, my mother and I moved to Batavia in January 1942 and got housing from her parents, my grandparents, Opa Koos Pieters and Oma Marie Pieters Wittoek, at Leonielaan 34 in Meester Cornelis.

In May 1942, the Japanese began transporting their POWs from the former Dutch East Indies to Japan and Burma in what were known as Hell Ships. These transports carried a mix of POWs and regular Japanese troops and cargo. Over 20,000 Allied POWs died at sea when the transports carrying them were attacked by Allied submarines and aircraft, as the Hell Ships were not considered non-combatants.

On his way to the Death Railway in Burma, my father spent a week in the 10th Battalion (also known as the Bicycle) camp in Batavia and was transported to Singapore on the Tacoma Maru, departing from Tandjong Priok on October 16, 1942, with approximately 1,700 Dutch POWs (including 500 KNIL reserve officers). Prisoners were crammed into cargo holds with little air, ventilation, food, or water. Toilets consisted of crates tied to the railing. The next day, bacillary dysentery broke out on board, the disease spread rapidly and soon there were hundreds of sick. Many died of suffocation, starvation or dysentery. After three days he arrived at camp “Changi” in Singapore and from there he had to walk via Malacca to Ban Pong in Thailand. The journey took one week. In 1942, the Malay Peninsula consisted of the geographical area that included Malaysia and Singapore, as well as parts of Burma (now Myanmar) and Thailand.

While most men were sent to Japan and Burma, the Japanese immediately began registering about 400,000 Dutchmen during the occupation of the Dutch East Indies, two-thirds of whom were Indo-Europeans. The distinction between “Totoks” (white Dutchmen) and Indo-Europeans (people of mixed blood) was initially made ‘by eye’ by the occupiers. It was striking that the Japanese used the terms Totok and Indo, which had already been in use before the war. The Totoks were soon called up by radio and newspapers to report to designated collection points and were imprisoned in Japanese camps, the locations of which were spread across city districts. The period of internment began after mid-1942 on Java. 

After about a year, almost all Totoks had been housed in Japanese camps. The Japanese had left the Indos outside their camps in the hope of mobilizing them for the Japanese ideal: the creation of one large Southeast Asia. But the Indos did not want to cooperate with the Japanese and remained loyal to the Netherlands, risking their own lives and were then being locked up in barbed wire fenced protected districts – the so-called ‘Outside Camps (Buitenkampen)’. To better distinguish who was European and who was Indo-European, a pendaftaran was made mandatory. This was an identity card on which the descent (as far as known) was indicated. The aim was to distinguish the full-blooded whites from the mixed bloods.

Survival in Buitenkamp

During WWII, Leonielaan and its surroundings were designated as an ‘Outside Camp (Buitenkamp)’, a platoon of Japanese soldiers led by an officer was detached and the entire complex was separated from the Meester Cornelis district with barbed wire. During the day, when my mother and grandmother had to go outside to buy food, by selling the few possessions we still had, Rex (our shepherd dog) kept an eye on me and pushed me away if I came too close to the fence. (See Leonielaan house drawing above.)

The Leonielaan house diagram above shows the layout of the house and the garden where ‘singkong’ (casava), ‘bajem’ (spinach), ‘pisang’ and ‘papaya’ trees grew; the latter gave us ‘putjuks’ (young shoots). I remember that the leaves tasted terribly bitter. Yet I had to eat them because they contained many vitamins.

There was no food distribution at all for the people outside the camps called ‘Buitenkampers’. A roll the size of a Marie Biscuit cost 2 rupiah. Every day my mother could get half a liter of ‘horse rice’ for me in the ‘kampoeng’. For this, she had to stand in line from early in the morning until about 14:00. The ‘horse rice’ consisted of rice, straw, broken glass and ‘kabah’ (rice sheets). After cleaning, a cigarette tin of rice was left. For me, the meal consisted of that little bit of rice and a ‘telor asin’ (salted egg). My mother regularly sold some of our household goods to buy chicken legs (the ‘tjokors’). First, they were boiled to make stock and then I was allowed to chew on them. For vegetables we ate products from our garden, such as the ‘putjuk’ (young shoots) of a ‘papaya’ tree, young leaves of the ‘patjeh’ (stink fruit) tree and ‘ketella’ (casava) and ‘oebie’ (sweet potatoes).

The rest of the family, like my mother, my oma and opa, sometimes had nothing to eat for fourteen days in a row, except leaves from the trees in our garden. Later, my mother traded clothes and household items for food in kind on the black market and she also made toy animals from old curtains, which she then sold to a shop on Pasar Baru in Batavia Centrum.

During the occupation, there was constant threat and intimidation from the Japanese. One morning, there was a knock on the door of our house. When opening the door, the head of the prison, Yabo, dressed in a thin kimono, stood before my mother. He said in Malay: “Come and live with me, I will give you nice clothes and good food.” My mother showed him her ‘pendaftaran’, which, because it was issued by the Kempetai (Japanese Gestapo), had an official status and indicated that she was under their protection. Yabo responded by saying: “Your husband has been arrested, he is not coming back (he made the gesture of cutting his throat).” Fortunately for my mother, a Japanese captain in uniform named Ueda came by at that moment, because he had to talk to Yabo. My mother spoke to Ueda and told him what Yabo wanted from her. In response, Ueda started shouting at Yabo and called him to order. And he did! In the Japanese army, anyone wearing an official military uniform always had a higher rank than a colleague wearing civilian clothes. As a result of this unpleasant incident, Yabo was demoted and sent to an outpost in Tegal. His successor, named Tanaka, took his place almost immediately.

Threat of Forced Separation

Around 1943, when transports from the Dutch East Indies to Japan were still possible, the Japanese emperor Hirohito decided that children under the age of three had to be taken to Japan to be trained as soldiers. Mothers with a son under the age of three had to report to the Parkhotel in Noordwijk in the center of Batavia. The raids to pick up the children (the age had been raised to eight in the meantime) began in early 1944. They were taken to Sawah Besar, in the center of Batavia, where they stayed in a boys camp until the end of the war. The Japanese registration was so thoroughly organized that my father, who was imprisoned and worked in the Hintok POW camp in Burma, was congratulated by the camp commander on the fact that his son would soon serve as a soldier for the emperor. Our certificate, approved by the Japanese emperor, was burned by the Indonesian freedom fighters, the pemoeda, who raided and plundered our house on Leonielaan.

The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use of the information and content of this article.

This article is part of a special three-part series (see part 2 and part 3) featuring Edward E. E. Frietman’s firsthand experiences. Stay tuned for the next installment, where Edward recounts the turbulent and dangerous Bersiap period—a chapter that unfolded just as World War II came to an end. Don’t miss his powerful eyewitness account of this often-overlooked part of the Indo story.

Free Ebook Edition: Prefer to read offline or keep a permanent copy? Download all three parts compiled into a single, convenient collection for free on Google Play Books.